Editor’s Note: This story by James Wood was originally published in the Regina Leader-Post on Oct. 30, 2009.

A would-be carjacker picked the wrong MLA to mess with Thursday morning.

Saskatchewan Party MLA Lyle Stewart was driving into Regina from his Thunder Creek constituency on a gravel road when he stopped to offer assistance to a man whose truck was in the ditch.

The man, with a few “expletives deleted,” then informed Stewart he had a knife and he wanted the rancher and ex-cabinet minister’s car.

Bad move, evidently.

“I thought I better do something,” a laconic Stewart explained to wide-eyed reporters at the legislature.

The 58-year-old rancher said his primary concern was not getting stabbed in his seat — but he also wasn’t about to give up his car, a 2001 Ford Taurus.

“I got out and a fight ensued,” he said.

“It probably wasn’t pretty. I slipped on the road in the mud and he got in the car first and took off so I jumped in on top of him … I steered the car into the ditch before he could hit his truck with the door that was open, which he said was his intention. He said, ‘you better get out because I’m going to hit that truck with the door’.”

The purported knife never showed up during the scrap but, while he was holding the assailant, Stewart was stabbed several times in the hand and wrist with pens and pencils that were in the vehicle

“He ripped the mirror off my windshield and whacked me in the head a few times,” Stewart added with a laugh.

“Nothing serious at all.”

At the same time Stewart was grappling in the front seat of the car, he used his cellphone to contact police.

“9-1-1 first, then in the struggle the phone kept folding up and then the RCMP phoned back and I’m getting beat on the head with my mirror,” he said.

Stewart said he understood the man was already on the run from the Regina police.

“I believe he was stoned. Crazy, sort of,” he said.

Known both for an imposing presence, but also an understated wit, Stewart was first elected to the legislature in 1999. He was named Enterprise and Innovation Minister after the election of the Sask. Party government in 2007, but was dropped in the May cabinet shuffle.

Stewart said he’s probably stopped to help people on the highway “200 times” in his life. This incident won’t deter him, he said, although there have been other times on the road, which turns into Dewdney Avenue, where he believes individuals have been laying in wait for cars to stop.

Stewart admits he’s not sure if fighting for the car was such a good idea.

“You know, it’s only a car. Let it go. You have to keep that in mind that your personal health and safety is number one,” she said.

The incident was the talk of the legislature Thursday. Premier Brad Wall said in an interview that government members wondered about Stewart’s unusual absence when he missed the morning caucus meeting and question period.

Once Stewart was safe and sound, Wall could only marvel at the strange course of events — and the bad luck of the man who tangled with Stewart.

“We promised to get tough on crime but I didn’t know we would do it one MLA at a time,” he quipped.

On Thursday afternoon, RCMP said Clayton Friday, 45, of Pense, had been charged with robbery with an offensive weapon, impaired driving by drug, assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm. He is in custody pending his first court appearance.

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